Shadowlands Beta Build 36294 - Druid and Priest Class Changes

[Lumy]

Shadowlands Beta - Druid Class Changes

Catching up here—I know you’ve seen some ongoing tuning to Covenant abilities on beta. One recent update that’s not as visible is that Convoke the Spirits will now try to use more consistent number of current-form abilities. There are exceptions–for example if no hostiles are in range, Convoke will use 12 friendly spells regardless of spec. But, on average, Convoke should much more consistently use 7-8 current-form spells.

Shadowlands Beta - Priest Class Changes

Greetings!

As some of you know, we’ve made adjustments to Shadow Priests lately to balance their damage, as heavy iteration on the specialization led to some things getting out of alignment. In this week’s new Beta build, we’ve made more adjustments.

At the same time, we saw that some of the Insanity reductions from last week hurt the flow of the rotation, so we’ve reverted some of those. We also want to make sure that Mind Blast feels important to use over Mind Flay.

This week’s changes include:

• Dark Thought duration increased to 10 seconds (was 6 seconds).
  
  • Developers’ notes: We’ve also decreased Dark Thought’s max stacks to 1, as 5 felt excessive. We are open to feedback about how this feels, as always.
• Mind Blast generates 8 Insanity (was 7).
• Mind Flay damage reduced by 15%.
  
  • Developers’ notes: Shadow was proving too powerful in single target situations. This helps address that while still allowing Mind Blast to feel impactful.
• Mind Sear damage reduced by 15%.
• Devouring Plague initial hit reduced by 15%, and periodic damage reduced by ~12%.
• Auspicious Spirits generates 2 Insanity (was 1). Damage reduced to 15% (was 30%).
  
  • Developers’ notes: This to differentiate it more from Psychic Link. Auspicious Spirits should be about getting more Devouring Plagues, while Psychic Link is better at spread damage.
• Searing Nightmare once again costs 30 Insanity (was 35).
  
  • Developers’ notes: There is some gameplay value in getting 3 Searing Nightmares in a row when pooling Insanity, so we decided to revert this change.

Thank you for all of your testing and feedback.

[Shinagami091]

Glad to see they’re still doing class balance. I’m a bit biased on this subject but I’d like to see some Balance Druid improvements. Even with these nerfs to Shadow Priest, it’s still a whole lot more fun to play than balance Druids are currently.

[Assumi]

"Now that we've delayed the game because half the content is straight up broken should we spend the time fixing the Maw being a total empty wasteland time sink? Broken Legendaries? Terrible progression? Nah just nerf the only few specs that aren't shit."

[Donimic]

did they just say that they want to buff mind blast and slightly nerf mind flay.... and then add ONE insanity to mind blast and nerf damage to mind sear by 15%?
and then they said they want to nerf single target damage a bit... and then nerf mind sear our AoE filler equivalently to our single target filler?

[Treeskee]

"Now that we've delayed the game because half the content is straight up broken should we spend the time fixing the Maw being a total empty wasteland time sink? Broken Legendaries? Terrible progression? Nah just nerf the only few specs that aren't shit."

While I haven't been following class balance or much of Shadowlands really since balance is constantly changing. Just remember! If all specs are shit, none are.

[Shakzor]

"Now that we've delayed the game because half the content is straight up broken should we spend the time fixing the Maw being a total empty wasteland time sink? Broken Legendaries? Terrible progression? Nah just nerf the only few specs that aren't shit."

I'm pretty sure people doing/balancing classes aren't the same that work on those things you mentioned. Maybe legendaries, but the rest, likely not

[Warning]

did they just say that they want to buff mind blast and slightly nerf mind flay.... and then add ONE insanity to mind blast and nerf damage to mind sear by 15%?
and then they said they want to nerf single target damage a bit... and then nerf mind sear our AoE filler equivalently to our single target filler?

Painful that these guys clearly explain their thoughts, which they really don't need to do and then they get people like you, still incapable of understanding but of course still capable of complaining.

Alright I'll make it even simpler. They said they want to nerf ST. They did that by nerfing mindflay and DP. They purposely avoided nerfing Mindblast so it can still hit hard. Cmon now that wasn't too difficult was it?

[Onikaroshi]

Painful that these guys clearly explain their thoughts, which they really don't need to do and then they get people like you, still incapable of understanding but of course still capable of complaining.

Alright I'll make it even simpler. They said they want to nerf ST. They did that by nerfing mindflay and DP. They purposely avoided nerfing Mindblast so it can still hit hard. Cmon now that wasn't too difficult was it?

There's someone over on wowhead who saw that they were tuning (this literally is tuning, it's not reworking things) and posted about them still doing changes so it's obvious that shadowlands isn't coming this year.


Like... they do tuning after the game is live even, like... what? You can't help these people.

[La]

Feels like they've spent 90% of their class balance on priests in the beta, while some have barely even been touched or mentioned

[Laqweeta]

Feels like they've spent 90% of their class balance on priests in the beta, while some have barely even been touched or mentioned

GOOD!

Priests suffered upwards of 4 years

[bloodykiller86]

good now make #1 at the beginning and for the rest of the games history....as it should be!

[muto]

GOOD!

Priests suffered upwards of 4 years

No they didn’t. Priests were very strong in 3 tiers (BoD, EP, Nyalotha) this expansion as well as M+. They were also by far the strongest dps in Emerald Nightmare. The only reason Priests are getting changes is because they conceded they can’t balance Voidform with no cd.

[Sorshen]

Shadow would be lucky to get away with these nerfs.

[GreenJesus]

"Now that we've delayed the game because half the content is straight up broken should we spend the time fixing the Maw being a total empty wasteland time sink? Broken Legendaries? Terrible progression? Nah just nerf the only few specs that aren't shit."

Did you even look at the DPS charts? Shadow priets was legit busted far and away better than anyone else.

[Lucetia]

Priests suffered upwards of 4 years

But did we sacrifice everything?

[Laqweeta]

No they didn’t. Priests were very strong in 3 tiers (BoD, EP, Nyalotha) this expansion as well as M+. They were also by far the strongest dps in Emerald Nightmare. The only reason Priests are getting changes is because they conceded they can’t balance Voidform with no cd.

And that's the *only* thing they were strong at.

Other than that, they suffered.

[Kaver]

No they didn’t. Priests were very strong in 3 tiers (BoD, EP, Nyalotha) this expansion as well as M+. They were also by far the strongest dps in Emerald Nightmare. The only reason Priests are getting changes is because they conceded they can’t balance Voidform with no cd.

Hasn’t Shadow Priest consistently been in top 5 raid dps since the beginning of Legion with the only exception being Nighthold? I’m not really sure what people are complaining about.

[Lucetia]

Hasn’t Shadow Priest consistently been in top 5 raid dps since the beginning of Legion with the only exception being Nighthold? I’m not really sure what people are complaining about.

I don't raid on my spriest so I don't care about meters on it. I just know before pre-patch I disliked playing it a lot. Can't put my finger on it, but didn't feel fun at all especially Void Form. That would be my complaint on them.

[Kaver]

I don't raid on my spriest so I don't care about meters on it. I just know before pre-patch I disliked playing it a lot. Can't put my finger on it, but didn't feel fun at all especially Void Form. That would be my complaint on them.

And that’s completely fair. But with the current nerf coming it just seems like other people are complaining that Shadow Priest has been weak in terms of numbers and I just don’t see that. Sure Fire Mage was stronger in 8.3 but that doesn’t mean that Shadow was weak. It just seems like some people will only accept the number one spot and if it’s not number one then it is weak...

[Lucetia]

And that’s completely fair. But with the current nerf coming it just seems like other people are complaining that Shadow Priest has been weak in terms of numbers and I just don’t see that. Sure Fire Mage was stronger in 8.3 but that doesn’t mean that Shadow was weak. It just seems like some people will only accept the number one spot and if it’s not number one then it is weak...

I think it depends on the content. I know I did low level M+'s on it as I did higher ones on my tank main. At lower M+'s they seemed really weak, but as you got higher they did better since stuff would stay up long enough to tick. I'm guessing things like that is what they are complaining about? Though not sure.